A nurse was “doing as well as can be expected” yesterday after being diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus on her return to Glasgow from Sierra Leone.

Pauline Cafferkey, a public health nurse at Blantyre Health Centre in South Lanarkshire who volunteered to help in the fight against Ebola, is receiving specialist treatment at the Royal Free Hospital in north London.

The 39-year-old was placed in isolation at a Glasgow hospital early on Monday morning after feeling feverish, before being transferred south in a military-style plane, inside a quarantine tent.

Efforts are ongoing to trace passengers on the flights Ms Cafferkey took back to Britain via Casablanca in Morocco and London Heathrow, arriving at Glasgow Airport at about 11.30pm on Sunday on a British Airways flight.

The nurse was part of a 30-strong team of medical volunteers deployed to Africa by the government last month.

Colleague Dr Martin Deahl, who sat next to her on the flight to Heathrow as they returned from five weeks in Sierra Leone, has criticised “disorganised” procedures in place for testing returning health workers.

Ms Cafferkey is the first to test positive for the virus on British soil.